Day: July 15, 2018

It had been a long, rainy winter so Julie had been penned up in the house most of the time. She hated the rain, but she hated being cooped up even more. Brad could sense that the winter was really starting to get to her, so he hatched a plan to cheer her up.

“Let’s take a vacation,” he said over breakfast one dreary Thursday morning.

“In this weather? You’ve lost your marbles.”

It became his mission to find a vacation that would lift her spirits and, with any luck, be the perfect location to propose. He stopped by the travel agency on his lunch break and browsed their brochures. They had winter getaways to Aspen and Vail, sunny beaches of Hawaii, and a wide assortment of discount cruises. He picked out one of each, thinking how each one would be a perfect vacation.

Brad pulled out the stack excitedly during dinner that night.

“What is snow,” Julie sarcastically said, “but frozen water? Duh!”

“Well, yeah, okay, I can see that, but Hawaii would be nice. We could lay out on the beach—”

“And get some tropical disease or step on a shell that’ll cut my foot, then I’ll need to have it amputated because of some weird infection!”

After three years, Brad knew better than to argue with her. He would always lose. He tossed those brochures in the trash and pulled out the cruise ones. “How about—”

Julie held up her hand and stood up from the table. “You just don’t get me, do you?”

Brad looked at the brochures. He thought they sounded nice. “You’re right. Sorry. What was I thinking?”

He spent all night on the couch thinking about what would make her happy. In the morning when Julie walked down the stairs dressed like she was going to the Oscars, it came to him. He grinned and raced through breakfast to get to the travel agency right when they opened. He booked the arrangements right then, knowing she would love it.

“It’s all booked,” he said that night over dinner.

“WHAT!” she screamed. “You didn’t even ask me!”

Brad put up his hands to calm her down. “I know, but trust me. We leave in two days. And you’ll love it!”

“TWO DAYS! You expect me to pack in two days!”

“Nope, you don’t even need to pack. You will have everything you need when you get there.”

Julie huffed. “I better, or else you’re a dead man.”

Brad chuckled. “You’ll love it.”

The day of their trip arrived and Brad drove to the airport, parking in short-term parking. Brad went all out for this trip. Spared no expense. The travel agent helped get him a fantastic deal on a private jet. Julie was being treated like the star she thought she was. She was so blown away by the luxury of being driven to her gate, escorted to the plane, and being handed a glass of champagne, that she didn’t notice Brad was not joining her on the flight.

“Are we squared away?” Brad asked the pilot.

“Yep, as long as you have the other half, when we get back.”

“Keep your end, and the other thirty thousand is yours.”

The two shook hands.

Six hours later the private jet returned to the airport and the pilot and attendant found Brad sitting at the airport restaurant. “Well?” Brad asked.

“She was all smiles and chatting about how nice the flight was not having you there,” the attendant said.

“Sounds like her.”

“She was already plastered when I gave her the sleeping pill that it hit immediately.”

“We landed just where you told us,” the pilot said. “Made sure she wasn’t dead and dumped her on the beach and covered her feet with sand, just like you said.”

Brad was so happy he couldn’t contain himself. He handed the pilot an envelope and he gave the attendant a few hundreds for her trouble. Then left before he had to pay for parking.

“Wonder why he wanted us to dump her on a deserted island?” the attendant asked.

“I’ve learned never to ask questions in this line of work,” the pilot said, looking at his accomplice. “Have another job in DC that pays a hundred fifty thousand…interested?”

She looked at the pilot and smiled. “This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

Great Aunt Esta was quite the mercurial, yet woebegone woman. She lived alone and was quite content living with her plants and cats. That was until the Ant family moved in next door. Oh, they seemed nice enough when they first introduced themselves, but from what we have been able to piece together through the police records and trial transcripts, their children soon made pests of themselves. They were over at Aunt Esta’s day in and day out no matter how many times she asked them to stop coming over to admire her sunflowers. She told them to stop. She talked to Mr. Ant who just shrugged and said kids would be kids and what was the harm in looking at some flowers. Mrs. Ant was the same way. It was no use. One day Aunt Esta went into her garden and saw her sunflowers on the ground. That was, we think at least, the last straw and how Great Aunt Esta ended up on death row for killing the Ant family and how she became neighborhood a legend that is still talked about today.